My lead dog was a lesbian - Brian Patrick O'Donoghue [71]
Cooley’s wolves were bedded on straw outside the checkpoint. I found him inside. The vet was itching to get to Grayling, the next checkpoint, a mere 18 miles farther up the Yukon. Gunner, Williams, and Lenthar were still there, he said, waiting for us. That was great news. But I wasn’t budging from Anvik for at least two hours. My dogs were due for a break. I also needed to go shopping again. My folding Buck knife was still resting on a chair at Hamilton’s house. Replacing it was essential.
I was mixing dog food later when the checker approached me. “A musher’s got to have a good knife out there,” said Norman McAlpine, handing me a Swiss Army knife. “Take mine.”
Doc diagnosed Skidders’s limp as resulting from a sprained toe. “I’d take him to Grayling and see how he does,” said Cooley. “It’s not far. We can look him over again before the long haul to Eagle Island.”
I was already dishing out dog food by the time Daily showed up. Tom’s lips were unusually pinched. Bogus, his last dependable leader, was showing signs of mutiny.
“I don’t think Bogus wanted to run the Iditarod again,” Daily said sourly.
Cooley tried one last time to convince Daily and me to leave with him. We declined, promising to follow before dark.
Sixty teams had already passed through the village, accompanied by a sizable contingent of race volunteers, hotel caterers, and media people drawn by the “First Musher to the Yukon” feast. McAlpine told us to help ourselves to whatever was left from that earlier invasion. Daily and I pigged out, frying an entire pound of bacon.
The checkpoint’s bounty included a shipment of my mother’s booties and a card from Iris, who wrote that everyone was rooting for me. Hearing from her—wow, that took me back.
The bewitching Israeli artist was one of my favorite dance partners at the Howling Dog Saloon, Fairbanks’ rough-hewn summer showcase. Iris paid the rent by designing outdoor clothing at Apocalypse Design, a local manufacturer of expedition gear used by Butcher and other top mushers.
One summer night during a break in the music at the Dog, Iris and I ducked outside into the bar’s big fenced yard and began talking about the gear she could make me for the race. I figured I could get away with a single custom suit. Iris argued for layered clothing.
“What you need ees a beeb,” she said.
“A beeb?” I said, baffled by her Israeli-accented purr.
“A beeb for the legs. A pile vest to keep your chest warm. You’re too thin, you need the protection,” Iris said, laughing. “You should place your order now. It gets very beesy in winter.”
I dragged Iris back toward the dance floor. It seemed much too soon to be ordering cold-weather gear. It was 70 degrees out. Volleyball games continued past midnight under the rosy midnight sun. Winter seemed a million miles away then. Now I inhabited a hostile cold world, wearing those “beebs” like a second skin.
While the dogs snoozed, McAlpine entertained Daily and me with stories from his own 21-day Iditarod saga. The tempo of the villager’s race had been set on the first day, when he lay down for a quick nap and didn’t stir for 14 hours. It was a blunder Daily and I could well appreciate. McAlpine, for his part, understood what it was like to hunt trail markers at the far end of the Iditarod’s field. He made his 1983 trip in the company of Colonel Vaughan, who’s never been known for speed.
“The colonel was so polite he tipped his hat to every tree,” the checker said.
Barry Lee had ground to make up. He didn’t want to tackle the Yukon River alone, and Peele was too far behind. Feeling pressured, he hurried out of Iditarod in the early afternoon on Tuesday.
Garth had an hour’s lead. Considering the Englishman’s mad dash the night before, when he mushed his Redington dogs 90 miles without a break, Lee wasn’t at all confident that his team could close that gap. He was, at first, happily surprised when he found Garth camping roughly midway to Shageluk. But something about the scene disturbed Barry Lee. He paused to check on the Englishman’s condition.
“I’m OK,